SCCM 1606 Upgrade SQL Server 2014 to SQL Server 2016

SCCM 1606 Upgrade SQL Server 2014 SQL Server 2016 – In this post we will see the steps to upgrade SQL server 2014 to SQL Server 2016. This post is related to SCCM as we will be performing an inplace upgrade of SQL Server 2014 to 2016 installed for SCCM. Before upgrading the SQL server in production environment, it is advised that you test the upgrade on a test environment. You can download SQL Server 2016 from the Evaluation Center.

SCCM 1606 Upgrade SQL Server 2014 SQL Server 2016

With the release of SQL server 2016, the upgrade paths from previous versions are available here. You can upgrade from SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2012, and SQL Server 2014 to SQL server 2016. Before you upgrade take a look at those upgrade paths. Check if your SQL server version can be upgraded to SQL server 2016.

Just remember that I have performed the upgrade in my test environment. Therefore I advise you to do the same first. If you find SCCM 2016 and SQL 2016 stable then upgrade it in production environment.

Before you upgrade :

Ensure your SQL server version is eligible for upgrade to SQL server 2016.

Note that SQL Server 2016 is only available for 64-bit platforms. Hence cross-version instances of SQL Server 2016 are not supported.

Before you upgrade enable Windows Authentication for SQL Server Agent. In addition the SQL Server Agent service account should be a member of the SQL Server sysadmin group.

If you are running evaluation edition of SQL server then upgrade to SQL 2016 is not possible.

Begin SQL server 2016 Installation

Mount the SQL server 2016 iso file and run the setup as administrator. On the SQL server installation center, click on Installation. Next click on Upgrade from a previous version of SQL server. Click I accept the license terms and click Next.

Click on Next. On the upgrade rules dialog you should see all the rules as passed. Click Next.

Select the instance of SQL server. Click Next.

Click Next.

On the instance configuration dialog, click Next.

Finally click on Upgrade.

If the upgrade is successful you see a dialog box which shows computer restart required. The summary log file location is shown at the bottom of dialog. Click OK. Close the installation wizard and reboot the server.

My Observations – After upgrading to SQL server 2016, I have not observed any issues. In conclusion the SCCM 2016 is working fine. The performance of SQL server 2016 is really good. I will update this post in case i find any issues.

I am Prajwal Desai and I have been working in IT for over 8 years with a strong focus on Microsoft Server Technologies. I work on multiple technologies and I am good at Configuration Manager, Intune, Azure and other stuff.